Committed To Paper
by Proton Star
Summary: Charles had always been told that no one liked their thesis, but he hadn't expected to hate it quite so much.


Title: Committed To Paper

Author: Red Fiona

Fandom: X-Men: First Class

Disclaimer: The characters and setting are not mine, they belong to Marvel. No money is being made from this fic.

Characters: Charles Xavier, Hank McCoy

Rating/Warnings/Etc: PG gen fic, set post-film

Spoilers: For X-Men: First Class

Author's Notes: The opinions of the characters are no reflection of those of the author.

Summary: Charles had always been told that no one liked their thesis, but he hadn't expected to hate it quite so much.

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><p>The house was quiet, but then again, it always had been, even when he and Raven were younger. Mother hadn't liked noise, so there was none. Yet, it seemed so much quieter now, after the flurry of noise, because there were only the four of them left living there.<p>

Charles picked up the telephone and rang his old professor. He'd been out the other times Charles had tried, but there was no reason for him not to be in his rooms now. It was five o'clock in Britain, lectures had finished but it was not yet time for dinner.

"Hello, Professor ..."

"Charles, how are you doing?" Charles knew that he wouldn't be able to get his old supervisor to give him the information he wanted, if he even knew it, without going through this rigmarole. He tried to reassure his Professor that no, he was well and everything was also going well. "But teaching, Charles, surely you want to do some research work first." There was a brief pause while the Professor tried to understand why anyone would prefer teaching to research. "You haven't done something silly like getting a girl into trouble. I know how it is with charming young fellows like you."

"Oh, no, nothing like that. I've found a very interesting teaching position. I hope to be able to combine it with some research, eventually."

"Oh well, if you wish."

Charles realised he'd better bite the bullet and ask his question. He immediately regretted his figure of speech. The mere thought of bullets made his mouth taste of ashes and his head ache. "About that, I was wondering, not for myself, you understand, but how would one go about retracting one's thesis. A man at the school I'm teaching at swears that's why he doesn't have one, after a falling out with his university. I'm not entirely inclined to believe him, and I was wondering if it was possible."

"I don't believe a word of it, Charles, you never could lie. I can read your mind like an open book. This is about it being a genetics thesis. I realise America is backwards on the matter, but surely they'd rather you have a thesis rather than none. It's very strange, all of it, you vanishing off." There was a pause on the other end of the line. "You do realise you've always got a home here. No matter what, we'll gladly have you back."

And they would. While Charles wanted nothing more than to go back to his old rooms and his safe old life, he knew it wouldn't do. He had to stay and prepare to stop Erik from doing whatever he was planning. "I know. And I am grateful. Immeasurably. But you'll send me the information?"

"I will. It gives me a heavy heart to do it, but I will."

"With this all being a bit hush, hush and on the QT, could you send it to this address." He gave the address of Mrs. Donald, who lived a good distance away, and the maiden name of his mother. Mrs. Donald had worked for his mother when he was much younger, and, he felt sure, wouldn't mind taking the parcel in. He could get Moira ...

No, he couldn't get Moira to do anything for him, because he'd sent her away, and made sure she would stay there. And Hank wouldn't drive him; he refused to leave the house and gardens, and Sean couldn't drive, so Charles would have to rely on Alex, whose driving was erratic at best. He hated having to rely on everyone else to fulfill his plans, but they were still trying to find the best way to modify the car.

"Thank you for your help."

"Not a problem, Charles, and remember what I said."

The phone rang off.

It was then that he noticed Hank standing in the door way. His thoughts had always been heavy, in strange contrast to the rest of him, but now it was as though his frame had increased to fit them.

"I couldn't help but overhear." Charles believed him; Hank's secondary mutation meant he could hear a pin drop from two rooms away. "You do know no-one ever retracts their thesis."

Charles tried to avoid the question. "Where are Alex and Sean?"

"Flying, I think." There was a time, not that long ago, when Charles would have said that Alex and Sean flying about unsupervised would only end in disaster, but he knew what disaster was now, and no, there'd probably only be some minor property damage and a few bruises. Still, he would have preferred it if he could have turned around and got Erik to watch over them while he talked to Hank. He tried to be there for them all, if indeed just three people could count as an all, but he couldn't, not all of the time and not everywhere, and he knew he pushed too much of his workload onto Hank. "Stop trying to avoid the subject. The only reason for retraction is if they find out you cheated, which you didn't, or if your results are wrong, and I don't think that's likely either."

"I over-reached my data with my conclusions. There could have been any number of reasons why Neanderthal man died out that had nothing to do with Homo sapiens. Flood, drought, change in climate conditions, an outbreak of a zoonotic disease." Put on the spot, Charles could think of that many, he had no doubt he could think of many more given the chance.

"There's no evidence for any of that." Hank seemed to be determined to disagree with him.

"There's no *real* evidence against it either." Charles knew he was shouting, and that he shouldn't because Hank was only trying to look after him. "There's so many things that we have that they didn't, for goodness sakes, we can communicate with each other. It doesn't have to be an all or nothing situation." Evolutionary theory had barely escaped from the eugenicists; Charles didn't want to be remembered amongst them, no matter how accidentally.

"No one's saying it is. Just because something happened once, it doesn't mean the same thing is going to happen again." Hank was trying to be the voice of reason.

"I know that, you know that, but that's not going to stop some madman holding up my thesis saying 'see, the mutants are going to wipe us out, so we should do it to them before they can'." It was a recurring nightmare Charles had, where the information he had gathered was used to persecute mutants.

"No one's going to do that. Who actually reads other people's theses?" Hank wasn't even sure his supervisor had read his.

That much was true. Except there was one person Charles knew had read it, despite her protestations. He'd been warned that he'd hate his thesis, apparently everyone did, whether it was because of one particularly clunky paragraph that you couldn't think of a way of re-phrasing, or the way that figure on page 263 never did ever quite look right, and after the tenth attempt at it you couldn't be bothered trying any more. He'd expected that. He hadn't been prepared to hate it because every time he looked at it he remembered all of Raven's complaints, and her teasing and he missed her so much.

He suspected Erik had read it too. If only out of boredom. That was the problem. "I don't want anyone to use it to justify murder. Not them. Not *him*."

Hank wanted to know how Mr. Lensherr, Erik who'd been there with them, had become *him*, someone so terrible that he didn't need a name. Hank knew when, he'd been on the beach, but he couldn't understand it. He disliked being unable to grasp that detail, it made him feel even more apart than he did normally. He was more irritable now, since the accident, and there was rage buzzing about his head like bees when he thought about it. Surely two of the cleverer people he knew should be able to get over their differences and do something constructive, rather than this slow picking apart of each other.

Hank took a deep breath and counted to ten. "No one ever wants that, but it's out there. It's been out there for some time. Withdrawing it at this point only attracts more attention to it, and doesn't accomplish anything. Also, not having your doctorate would be a problem when you set up the school." Hank had learned that much while making Cerebro, from arguing with engineers far senior to him when they were making mistakes - if you're going to say someone's wrong, give them a reason for wanting to agree with you. Professor Xavier did so want to set up his school. "Using an actual whip would be a better form of self-flagellation."

"You're probably right." There was a crunching sound from outside. Charles turned himself, preparing to leave the room to find out what had caused it, even though he had a good idea what it probably was. "Do you think clearing up after Sean and Alex counts as a reasonable substitute?"


End file.
